LastingAware The greatest movie ever!

BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Titreenp SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Ploydsge just watch it!

bkoganbing Other than Nanook Of The North from silent days the only other two films concerning the Eskimos and their culture are Shadow OF The Wolf that starred Lou Diamond Phillips and Toshiro Mifune and this one The Savage Innocents. Almost 60 years have passed since the making of The Savage Innocents and the present. Are there still Inuits like Anthony Quinn and Yoko Tani untouched by our civilization.Envying another Inuit who has gotten a rifle and bullets, Quinn and his pregnant wife Yoko Tani travel months to a trading post to trade some skins for one. An encounter with a missionary played by Marco Guglielmi ends fatally for Guglielmi who is shocked by their sexual mores and for Quinn refusing Inuit hospitality is a grievous insult. Guglielmi is dead and Quinn and Tani are on the run back over the tundra. Quinn is a Savage Innocent in our civilized ways, but he certainly knows how to survive in his environment so the Mounties learn who are sent after him, one of those Mounties being Peter O'Toole.This must have been one rugged shoot for director Nicholas Ray and his cast and crew. But the result is some spectacular location footage of the Canadian and Greenland frozen north.Some of the issues raised here are similar if not the same as those in the film Hawaii which is also about westerners and missionaries intruding on the customs of the native population of Hawaii and the other Pacific Islands.I'd really recommend seeing The Savage Innocents with Shadow Of The Wolf and Hawaii. Or by itself, just see it.

clanciai Fascinating and amazing study in cultural clashes at their most basic level, in the face of the hard survival in an impossible world of practically only adversities and death - the first scene of the bear hunt sets the mood. The bears play a significant part of the drama, although their performance is minimal. The dialogue is absolutely ingenious in all its extreme primitivism - the characters have found themselves very well in this totally alien mentality of thinking in terms of extreme basics. The death scene of the old woman is one of the highlights in its wise philosophy beyond this world and so practical at the same time - this reminds you of some of the burial practices in old Japan; but the whole film is most akin of all to Robert J. Flaherty's epoch-making "Nanook of the North" of 1922 - Nicholas Ray must have studied this historical documentary in its minutest details to be able to make a modern version of it - the character of the film is more documentary than of a feature film. Of course, you can't help worrying all the time about something terrible to happen to these very simple people, and of course it does, but the only terrible scene is actually their visit to the white man's trade station. Asiak's horrible misgivings about the place are perfectly understandable and sound, her instinct is throughout the film wiser than anything else, and her worst forebodings come true with a vengeance. The most pitiable person in the drama is the poor missionary who is most misguided of all, and the first trooper, who makes everything go wrong. It's quite sensational to see Peter O'Toole in this mess before he was known at all. He and Anthony Quinn would soon play against each other again in "Lawrence of Arabia". This is an amazingly wonderful and fascinating film in every aspect, unique in its kind, and the very appropriate Italian music adds to it, with intoxicating Greenland sceneries and a fabulous exposure of primitive psychology at its most natural and basic state of fortunately incurable innocence.

guil fisher Once again, cruelty to animals is exploited in this film when our hero, played by Anthony Quinn, after driving his sled dogs across the cold plains, decides to cut them open, alive, to keep warm. What a horrible scene that was. The screaming of the animals as they one by one were cut open so the likes of our hero can save his own skin by sticking his hands into their warm blood. Ugh!It made me sick! I saw no entertainment in this sort of film and turned the thing off. I wish the public would stop paying admission for films like this. It only encourages other producers to follow suit. A definite downer to watch. Glad it was on television so I could change channels.

wild-plum In the late sixties, bob dylan was asked how he came to write the song "Quinn the Eskimo". He replied that he'd seen this movie in which Tony Quinn played an Eskimo. The Savage Innocents is that movie. (In a much later book about his lyrics, Dylan says he doesn't remember how the song came about- like many of us, ol' bob's memory ain't what it used to be.)This is the most accurate portrayal of Eskimo customs ever to come out of Hollywierd. It contrasts the cultural practices of Inuit and North American societies at a time when many Inuit people had not yet encountered the white man and his ways. The movie asks the question "who is savage and who is innocent?" The movie is full of memorable performances and "sound bites". You'll come away with a new appreciation for traditional Eskimo culture and more than a few new quotable quotes.When Quinn the Eskimo gets here, everybody's gonna jump for joy!